


Moon Drunk Monster

by discountghost



Category: ATEEZ (Band), K-pop
Genre: Alternate Universe - Urban Fantasy, Are they really werewolves or are they just people with a mental illness, Eventual Smut, Lunar Goddess, M/M, Minor A/B/O elements, Were-Creatures, lycanthropy, mental illness mention, some implied sexual content
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-19
Updated: 2019-10-19
Packaged: 2020-12-24 07:30:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21095729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/discountghost/pseuds/discountghost
Summary: Moon drunk monster,beautiful and strange.howl your melancholy questionand tell me,which you dread more:the echo or the answer?





	Moon Drunk Monster

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ScarlettSiren](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScarlettSiren/gifts).

> This is for one of the people I look up to a lot. I'm really glad I worked up the courage to message her :) Thank you, Sam, I hope you enjoy the wolves.
> 
> I would also like to make a note that [Clinical Lycanthropy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinical_lycanthropy) is an actual mental illness for which there is currently no known treatment for due to its extreme rarity.

“Here; your brochure, Jongho-ssi.”

The girl smiled over the seatback, brochure bending where her fingers held it. The smile didn’t reach her eyes. He tried not to think of the distance she was putting between them, as if she’d tried to avoid giving him what she had. Her face mask swung by her chin, held on by one end still hooked on her ears. He looked away, down at the brochure before he could think too much about what he was seeing.

She seemed to retreat, taking her hand back quickly and slipping back into her seat once he’d taken the brochure. He was the closest to their guides of the people on the bus, everyone further back. He knew why. Jongho swallowed as he looked at the large text. _ The Phases of Lunacy _. Entirely tacky, but romantic in a way that didn’t suit what they were all out here to do. They’d even put on an image of the lunar cycle. He glanced up through dark bangs to see one of the other girls staring him down. He couldn’t decipher what her expression was, but she looked away from him before he could ask anything.

The window was his only reprieve from the tension between passengers. The scenery rolled on by, snow capped trees and blanketed fields. Jongho couldn’t remember where they were headed. Somewhere remote; they’d left the city behind over an hour ago. Supposedly, the smaller villages closer to the mountains had become popular among the individuals they were looking for. Their guides had already stated that they were from the area themselves.

He could understand why they would be here. There was space, and it was beautiful. _ Natural _. Mesmerizing enough that he felt the cold snow could just suck him in. Pristine, untouched by the complications of the city. He wondered if they worried as much as he did about tuition out here. The snow did not answer his thoughts, and that might have been alright. Too soon the trees and rocks give way to old houses, traditional and proud. There were murmurs behind them as it dawned on everyone that they were nearing their destination.

“How can they stand to live so close?” An older woman — couldn’t have been any younger than sixty — uttered the question like a curse. Like she’d forgotten that they would all be living here soon enough. And getting closer.

“It’s because they were living here first. The packs didn’t expect them to move and they weren’t going to.” She’d said her name was Dami; blazing red hair that looked like it came out of a box. Her voice cut into the chatter that had formed around the single question, eyes trailed over the backseat crowd. “We should keep in mind that respect is very important in the relationships between the townspeople and the packs.” She turned back around in her seat, fiddling with her phone as a girl he couldn’t see the face of dropped a hand on her thigh.

The response was silence as the bus rocked on. They bounced and swayed in their seats as they progressed. The smooth road turned to a dirt path and they rattled on for a few more minutes before jolting to a stop. He was glad, to say the least, that they’d been afforded the luxury of seatbelts.

They got out in tentative waves, the guides first and the government-sponsored surveyors. It left him with a strange taste in his mouth to think of himself like that. They’re a small group, and he noted that he might as well just claim the spot of being the youngest. The closest person in age to him for the surveyors is a middle-aged man who couldn’t stop patting at his forehead with a handkerchief. He didn’t know why; summer had long since passed them by. It was the same man he’d heard murmured about how they’d “gotten stuck with the pregnant bitch” when they’d first seen Dami teeter up to the bus. 

“She looks like an overripe watermelon walking on tendrils.” He spat into the snow behind Jongho, the younger wincing when the ‘she’ turned to look at them. 

“Get a move on; sun is setting.” Minji’s voice came back to the group softly. 

“What happens when the sun sets?” A thin woman who looked like the wind would knock her over handed him her bags as she asked. “Something bad?”

Handong had been quiet. Someone else had introduced her, even, while she helped load things onto the bus. She was beside Jongho now, smiling for the first time since he’d met her. “It’s our time.” She kept her gaze on the task at hand and Jongho tried to miss the way Dami rubbed a hand over her stomach.

They were received with open arms. Jongho didn’t think it should have applied to everyone in the group, but he held his tongue. They had expected to find the village similar to a retirement community. They had been wrong. Children rushed forward, young adults greeting from the distance. On doorsteps, elders watched them pass with smiles. Or maybe the smiles had been for their guides. 

They were put up in a small bed and breakfast that would house the nine of them. The nine being, of course, the surveyors. They trudged through the snow to get to it, right on the edge of the village. Questions were raised — and then ignored — about the location as they went through the motions of settling into their temporary residence for however long this assignment took. And then they would be shipped off to the next spot.

He found his room at the corner, end of the hall. He should have been glad. He _ would _ have been if not for his roommate. The same man that had made comments about Dami. They’d almost been saddled with another roommate — an older gentleman married to one of the women — had he not raised a fuss about not being with his wife. The wind rattled windows, picking up as the moon rose high in the sky. 

He sat alone at dinner. Or he tried. His detachment from the group and their obviously negative sentiments had earned him some favor with the villagers. But they were curious. Curious as to why the nineteen-year-old had taken part in this. Out of civic duty? Out of curiosity of his own? Did he want to see someone who’d lost their mind to the illusion of howling to the moon that bad? He couldn’t give them the answers they wanted, and soon they did leave him to get back to whatever it was they had been doing.

Jongho didn’t think much of any of it. It was temporary. Their group would be shuffled and the man snoring at his left would be gone once this was all over. He’d check his bank account and find the lucrative sum he’d been promised for his work. He closed his eyes and let that sink in, let it lull him to sleep with the weight of rice and _ yeong gye baeksuk _ filling his belly.

Temporary.  


“Get up.”

The man beside him grunted, turned over. Jongho blinked up at the girl who’d handed him the brochure. Gahyeon. She was much less kind, hovering in the door. She was no more than a shadow, barely illuminated by the twilight leaking in through the window. He thought her eyes might have glowed, but that could have been the illusion of the place. Maybe she had intended to be less than cordial with the man beside him.

“Jongho-ssi, it’s time to get up.” Her voice dipped; soft, soothing. “Il Sung-ssi, wake up.” 

She waited another moment in the doorway before moving on, leaving the door ajar. Light filtered in from the hallway. He blinked again, gaze turned up to the ceiling. He wondered what time it might be, but it had to be early if the sun had not risen yet. 

Il Sung, his older roommate, did not stir as he stood. Peeking into the hallway, he saw no one. Gahyeon must have come to them last, and returned to her own room. He rubbed his eyes and turned to see Il Sung sitting up.

“Good morning.”

He gave a nod of acknowledgment. It was silent as they dressed, in the first layers of their winter wear, and silent as they continued down to breakfast. They’re met with porridge and a grimness not unlike when they’d first boarded the bus the day before. It was apparent that they understood what was to come. The cheerfulness of their hosts had fled with the atmosphere shift. But it was not worry that pulled taut the lines of their faces.

He saw it in the sneer of the young girl who placed a warm thermos in front of him. He assumed it was soup, thanks on his tongue, but she was gone before he could say anything. This was fine; this was temporary for them, too. 

Breakfast dragged on, even as he had wolfed down his own portion. They delayed the inevitable with slow spoons and chewing. And when it finally came, they moved as if they had been sentenced to the gallows. He swallowed around the lump in his throat as they divided themselves into groups. They stood in a semicircle in front of their leaders, at the mouth of the trails. 

He didn’t dislike being placed in a group with Dami and Siyeon; they had not been anything less than cordial with him. He did dislike his constant placement with Il Sung. The older man nudged him with his map, told him to hold it and he’d take the thermoses. He could only agree.

They trudged up the hill behind the inn to get to where the trees started. His ears filled with the crunch of their boots through the snow, the breaths they took. Out of synch. Harsh and hurried, and they hadn’t even gotten to where they needed to be.

“We have a far way to walk and the path is a bit less safe because of the snow, so please watch your step.” Siyeon threw the warning over her shoulder, blue hair a beacon under her white cap. She gripped Dami’s hand, steering the other carefully.

He didn’t bother listening to Il Sung complain about the group arrangement.

They stopped to rest only at the behest of the other surveyors. Dami had been adamant in continuing, not wasting hours, but the others were much the same for stopping. And here they had been worried that the pregnant would slow them down; it was the opposite.

“What is she so excited to get to?” Il Sung unscrewed the cap of the thermos in his hand. Jongho ignored that it was his. “We’re just going to see a bunch of people who howl at the moon.”

“I think it’s because it’s cold.” It was a response offered up by a woman who’d been showing off pictures of her elementary school-aged children on the bus.

Another clicked her tongue. She’d been at the very back, expression grim. “They’re like _ them _. They told us that on the way in.”

Silence. The group of girls had explained that they were a pack. Officially listed as Dreamcatcher. That they’d been chosen because they had been from this area and because they wanted to care for those who had been struck under the influence of the moon. That lycanthropy was not the same as what they were but that they had been willing to help. _ What they were _ was something that the group had immediately dismissed, and the girls had found themselves subject to the collective misunderstanding of a whole nation.

“They probably have friends running around out here — or want to be doing it, too.”

“All these people — deranged. They need help.” The mother sighed, clutching the little photo holder she’d been brandishing like a ward. “They need a psychiatrist, or Jesus.”

Il Sung coughed. He assumed it was supposed to be a laugh. “They’re crazies. People with something wrong in their brain. And if we aren’t careful, we could end up like them.”

The media had never been clear on the details when that first case was reported. Jongho doesn’t remember much about it; it hadn’t mattered to him. He had thought it would be just another one of those scandals that would pass in a matter of days. But it had turned into something bigger when they found the idol trainee dead in the street. Naked and bruised. The details were murky, but he remembered the media reporting on how they’d found footage of him running through alleys until he’d been interrupted by a chicken delivery guy.

“Do you think they run around naked? Like that man did?” It was tossed out casually.

“Probably not since that trainee.”

From then on, there came bigger cases. People more famous confessing to delusions of their bodies changing. How they had been called by the moon — Dalnim, after the goddess of folklore — to throw on their wolf skins. Sometimes something other than a wolf, but it all sounded far fetched. Like the plot of a bad movie. And then a psychiatrist spoke up and said what they all thought: that there was something very wrong with these people. That they needed help.

“It would be so much easier for us all if they had just gone to the institutions.”

“And what? For all we know they could have been thrown right back on the streets if they couldn’t pay. And then we would have to see them everywhere we turn, just there in the road.”

If they would not be medicated to be made normal, then they could live off on their own. That was what the general populace had thought. The general populace that had spent decades obsessed with the romantic idea of people turning into animals and tearing into the flesh of others for entertainment. Jongho wasn’t sure where they rectified that with their sudden hatred (especially as those same entertainment pieces became more prominent). 

And so they did; fled to rural areas at the start of the summer. 

“I just don’t understand why we need to document these people. If they want to be animals, then let them be animals and keep them away from the normal ones.”

“It’s like when we have to document the kind of animals we have, maybe. Don’t we have a count on how many endangered species are in our borders? They _ are _ animals, or think they are.”

“We don’t need to understand. We just need to do what they sent us to do, get our paycheck, and try not to catch whatever they have.” Il Sung took a swig of the thermos and wiped his mouth with the back of his glove.

“You’re right; we just have to get through however long this takes and then we go on with our lives.”

An air of finality settled over them. Jongho wondered if they’d forgotten the two girls leading them. If they’d forgotten that they’d condemned them to being the strange ones without a single thought of what that would mean to their being lead.

“I think we’ve rested enough.” Siyeon’s voice cut through the remaining murmurs, sharp. It matched her glare.

Jongho hung his head, but continued his impromptu vow of silence. He wondered how they would react when they first got to a new pack. How they would behave when they needed to ask their names, their ages, their numbers. He did not need to wonder for much longer.

The first pack they met was large. Twenty-three of them. Understandably guarded until Dami and Siyeon played ambassador. Jongho rocked from one foot to the other, hands gripping his notepad. His fingers were clumsy with his gloves on, handwriting worse than usual as he recorded names, ages, ID numbers. It became a mechanized process, the others offering up smiles that didn’t mask the contempt in their eyes.

One of the pack members watched him scribble down their name. Then laughed.

“You think we’re crazy.” It wasn’t a question. To his right, the mother glanced their way.  
“I-I don’t.” 

“But you don’t believe us.” It wasn’t wrong. Jongho didn’t believe a lot of what had been said.

“No.”

“So, you think we’re crazy.”

“I think you’re people.”

Another laugh. “What makes people so different from animals?”

Jongho didn’t answer. He didn’t know the answer, or if there was one to begin with.

They went on like they were supposed to. Information was given and the pack member flitted off to join the others that had finished. The mother beside him glanced his way again as someone else stepped up. He was the only one asking questions for the rest of their time there.

They didn’t come across any other packs, venturing further into the forest. But the threat of the moonrise made them turn back. They would need a few hours to return to the inn. At least they had something to show for their work. The group was quiet, and maybe that was the reason that they been able to hear it.

A howl broke the silence easily, echoing around them in the trees. Their guides halted. Siyeon held out a hand to stop the group, brows furrowed. Dami had taken the rear, beside Jongho. They had come to silent sort of amicability. Now, she strode away from him. Pulled Siyeon aside and spoke in hushed tones.

“It’s just another one of those people.” Il Sung, picking something from his teeth with a toothpick.

“Another pack? Do they move around or something?” The grim-faced woman, brows raised high toward her hairline. “How does that help us if they move?”

“Don’t wolf packs usually move to find food?” Eyes shot to him. He shrunk back slightly, shrugged. It’d been the first time he’d really talked to any of them. “Maybe they had to move territories to accommodate us?”

“Are there real wolves in this area? Like _ actual _wolves and not lunatics.” Il Sung chuckled at his choice of words, teeth on display as he smiled at the joke in them. “That could be what we’re hearing.”

The pair guiding them continued their quiet consultation. Siyeon steadied Dami with a hand on her elbow, gesticulating with her free hand. The redhead shared a similar frenzy, glancing back at their group a moment before returning her attention to the other. 

The mother nudged him. He tried to remember her name. Hee-something. 

“You think...they’re people, right?”

Jongho nodded, not sure if he liked wherever this conversation might be going.

“I — oh, this must sound so insensitive. Is there someone in your family with the...illness?” There was an edge of sympathy to her voice. Like it was the only explanation for why his thoughts would be out of synch with the rest of the group. That he wasn’t aligned with their ideals.

“No.”

“Someone you know?”

“No.”

“How could you think that, then?” Her voice raised sharply. She glanced around before lowering it again, a hand on his arm. Like she was trying to physically usher him away from the idea. “After what that man did?”

Ah, right. The man who had been understandably agitated. “He was being corralled like an animal.”

“He was _ behaving _ like an animal.” Her voice dipped again. “He ran around the streets naked. On all fours.”

“You called it an illness yourself. Does that make him a sick person or an animal?”

“Well, yes, he was sick — but that doesn’t excuse what he did! That poor child didn’t deserve that.”

They’d blurred it on the screen, but everyone knew. Or could find images of it online without the censoring. It was one of the most cliched things — the warning of what would happen when you caged an animal. And yet no one had really heeded the warning. He didn’t know what the origin of it was, but he sort of wished that more people remembered it.

The officers had backed a man into a situation he could not comprehend. Quite literally; he was ruled insane and incognizant of his actions. And if they’d done their job right, they would have sectioned off the area properly. Then the little girl would not have found her way on the other end of a panicked man’s mouth. A family wouldn’t be mourning their child if _ someone _ had took a moment to think, to breathe. 

Maybe then there wouldn’t have been pictures of a little girl with her throat ripped out all over the internet.

“There were a lot of people at fault.”

“Are you saying he wasn’t guilty?” Someone else had caught their conversation. Hee-something stepped back. Perhaps she had thought that he was too far gone.

This was okay; this was temporary.

“N-no. I just meant that we can’t blame him alone.”

“We sure can.” Il Sung spat again. “I don’t get why they didn’t just put him down on the spot.”

“They almost did, but those damn paramedics turned their attention to him rather than the girl.” The grim-faced woman. What was her name?

“She was dead. I think that’s standard procedure.” He was digging his grave further, but they weren’t looking at this objectively. 

“Then, they should have let him die. Simple as that.”

But it wasn’t that simple. There were grey lines, crossed and tangled. His brows furrowed, buried beneath his dark bangs. He dropped his gaze instead of responding.

“And this is why this country is like this today. If we let children like him run this nation, we won’t have anything left by the end of his generation.” Jongho didn’t need to look up to know that there was a finger being wagged in his direction. That they were all eying him with distaste. The mother stepped further away and he stopped trying to remember her name.

“Are we going to get a move on or do we need to be concerned about her going into labor in the middle of nowhere?” Il Sung’s words were icy as the air around them, stomping up to the pair. But they weren’t concerned with him.

Siyeon’s head whipped back toward where Jongho stood, staring at something past him. 

“Run.”

It took the group a moment to understand her. He thought it might have been his heart thundering in his ears. But it was the beat of paws through the snow approaching closer. Siyeon had already pulled Dami forward, the pair running ahead. Then the blue-haired girl slipped free and turned, yelling something that Jongho couldn’t make out in his panic.

He wasn’t sure when he had ended up on the ground, but the crush of snow in his mouth stung his teeth. A weight bore down on him. The dull bite of teeth around his arm jerked away from caring about his sore tongue and cold mouth. It dragged him to one side, the snap of neck from side to side carrying him. The animal had not yet bitten through the thick fabric of his coat, and for that he was grateful, but it also meant that it wasn’t finished with him yet.

Jongho couldn’t see past the snow whipping into his eyes and hair falling damp over them. But he could _ feel _. The moment that teeth finally shredded material and met skin. Pain blossomed over his forearm, and then he was being dragged in another direction as the process continued. He managed to flip over, catching the last glimpse of his group running away from him, Siyeon tossing a look over her shoulder. Too far out to see her expression. 

There was a yelp — maybe from him or from one of the dogs (he didn’t know why he thought they were dogs, but it made _ sense _. With all these people out in the woods, it would have to be wild dogs. Wolves would be smarter, wouldn’t they?) — but then he wasn’t being dragged around anymore. The thud of snow underfoot sounded as the animals retreated and he watched his breath fog up in front of him. 

He watched the sky darken, fading light taking the sun with it. And then he closed his eyes and let the cold sink into him.

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> please feel free to leave comments! i welcome them!
> 
> [twt](https://twitter.com/discountghosts) / [cc](https://curiouscat.me/remeremerem)


End file.
